


Poker Face

by tiger_moran



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 10:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moran's poker face is not just reserved for card games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poker Face

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly inspired by the way in which Moran calls Moriarty 'sir' in AGoS.

   Moran has a perfect poker face; he is skilled at hiding his true thoughts and feelings behind a cool mask, but that doesn’t mean that this perpetual pretence doesn’t chafe at him sometimes. As if his lips have never touched Moriarty’s; as if he has not had his hands on the professor too many times to count; as if he has not curled in Moriarty’s arms to sleep at nights for so long now; as if Moriarty has not claimed Moran as his, _his,_ in body and soul; as if Moriarty is not also his in return.

    He does not allow his façade to slip in public no matter how hard it becomes to maintain, even though there are times now when he _almost_ forgets, or else simply very nearly decides to say to hell with the rules and conventions. Still he plays the dutiful employee; the deferential subordinate; the close (but not _too_ close) friend, but in his blue eyes flickers resentment towards the law and towards a society that deems their regard for each other immoral and illegal while all the while that same society seethes with sin.

    Yet often there is something else in his eyes too. The professor, who knows the colonel better than anyone, sees it, if few else ever trouble to notice. There is wry amusement too on the occasions Moran calls him ‘sir’ in public – an amusement shared by Moriarty also when the pair think upon all the times Moran has called him ‘sir’ in private, whether when kneeling before him or held beneath him, speaking with a reverence born not of fear but of deepest love; when Moran has given himself to Moriarty utterly and Moriarty has accepted his lover’s submission and cherished it as the precious gift it truly is (and… there have been times too – rarer, but not so infrequent as to not be worth recalling - when the situation has reversed; when Moran has played the master; when he has called Moriarty ‘sir’ even while dominating him entirely).

    It pleases the professor to have Moran make such a mockery of society’s damnable restrictions and hypocrisy with that simple epithet and so, if they must continue with this charade and reserve their deeper displays of their affection for their private time together, well, then perhaps that is not so bad after all.


End file.
